OKLAHOMA CITY – With 5 minutes, 28 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Damian Lillard hit two powerful dribbles with his left hand, putting his man on his hip and putting up the assistant defender, Al Horford.
It was a one-point game, the leader of the Oklahoma City Thunder and, as Lillard does, hit the kick button to get up and shoot in front of Horford, the kind of shooting on which the mythology “Dame Time” is based.
The problem was that, until then, he was 1 out of 9 from a distance of 3 points. It was not a typical Lillard game, with bursts of photos with logos and dazzling finishes. It was short, it was on the left, it was on the right. And this over Horford – he missed very briefly and Left.
Lillard backed the blazers beaten last month behind these moments, carrying the burden of clutch time on his shoulders, while trying to bring in young talent like Anfernee Simons, Gary Trent Jr. and Nassir Little. But the big places, the real-time photos, belong to Lillard.
But with cold air in Oklahoma, cool to the point where the state was facing an energy emergency, virtually every light in the arena was off, but those that illuminate the floor, Lillard was cold as ice. And not in the right way.
Thunder, as they have often done this season, have given up their young players, hanging in the game long enough for energy and athleticism to exhaust an opponent. Hamidou Diallo sprang all over the floor; Lu Dort walked away from the snow to the curb. A 20-point advantage Blazer turned into a five-point deficit with four minutes to go. It’s a time now or never for Dame Time.
“There is concern,” Lillard acknowledged. He said he looked at the scoreboard when the Blazers’ lead fell to 93-84, hoping his team could hit two quick 3s, calm the Tunder’s race and then take orders for an easy landing.
“But we were like, ‘Man, that would be a heavy loss for us. We played so well.’ But once I got back on the field, I was like … “he said, pausing for a moment.
“I never think there’s a game I can’t control,” he said. “When I’m there, I feel how hard the defense tries to stop me. When I see how alert and how active they try to stop me, they just tell me they’re worried. They’re worried about how well or how badly they shoot the ball. And for me, it’s even more of a mental thing for me that even though I know I’m not hot, they’re still worried and I want to show them why they should be worried. And why they should still be on the sidelines. “
0:52
Enes Kanter comments on Damian Lillard’s amazing play, saying that he has never seen anything like it before.
His first final game 3 came at 4:11, with Dort flying beside him on a fake pump. Lillard dribbled and calmed down. Thunder’s advantage dropped to two and ended a 23-4 run with which OKC opened the fourth quarter. With Thunder now on high alert, he set Trent for a corner 3 on the next trip, and the Blazers took the lead again.
The next possession, Lillard worked to remove him from Dort and force a switch. He leaned back in a quick release on Isaiah Roby and hit the back of the net. A few goods later, Lillard had isolated Dort. An obstinate defender, who worked tirelessly to pursue Lillard, Dort was left with every shot, every deke, every fake. With the clock shot down, Lillard stepped back and took a big step back to return to a 3 with a slightly weaker and an additional bow due to stellar defense. It didn’t matter – it was Dame Time. Two trips later, Lillard struck another official dagger to give the Blazers their fifth straight 115-104 victory over OKC.
Lillard started the game 1 out of 10 from a distance of 3 points. He finished 4 of 4. Just a standard 31-point game with seven rebounds and 10 assists – and one win.
“It’s like a scam code – I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Enes Kanter. “And I played with some great players, but I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s wild.”
The Dame Time mentality is one that has been well chronicled, with Lillard answering questions about it since she gave up her first famous clutch blow – in 2014 to eliminate the Houston Rockets. But he revealed on Tuesday that part of unlocking the mindset to embrace big moments is in his own personal mind game with himself.
“I don’t know why,” he said, “I just do it.”
2:24
Stephen A. Smith apologizes for overlooking Damian Lillard’s outstanding performances this season.
The defenders ‘attention, the fear they hear in the voices of the coaches’ assistants asking the players to stand, can serve as a reliable injection for Lillard even when the shot does not fall.
“It’s encouraging in those moments,” Lillard said. “Sometimes they get short. Sometimes they do pretty well or the shots don’t come in, but in those moments they tell me that when they leave the field, maybe they’ll come back and say, ‘That’s why I wanted you to do it, so we wouldn’t “I want to do this to the opposing team.”
Lillard said he doesn’t remember exactly when he started playing those mind games with himself – maybe the second season, he guessed – and didn’t really have an explanation for how he mentally goes into that. place to activate it.
“It’s internal,” he said. “It simply came to our notice then. You’re just asking for something extra from you. Nothing comes of it [Blazers head] trainer [Terry] Stotts, none of this is coming [NBA development coach] Phil Beckner, none of that. It’s just inside, I’m like I have to find a way. This is an opportunity to grow and grow. “
At the end of the third trimester, Lillard hit Dort in the knee and took a longer period of time trying to remove it. The Blazers made a foul so he could be checked on the bench and even after he fully recovered, Lillard watched as he rubbed and flexed his intermittent knee. It was a brief moment of terror for the Blazers, who were already facing a wave of wear and tear. This wear and tear has given some of their young players opportunities to grow, which can benefit the team in the long run, but as last season showed, without Lillard, there is no Dame Time, which means no there are Blazers.
This is the reason why he accepts and understands the responsibility he holds, especially without a relative of the injured field, CJ McCollum. And even on a night when it didn’t happen, Lillard’s inner voice kept talking to her, telling her there was an opportunity for a moment.
“I told myself that and I came a lot of times. But it’s a real thing,” he said. “I always talk to myself like that. You have to find a way. You have to start. You photographed the whole game badly, but this is a new beginning. I always talk to myself like that.”
Cold as ice. In good mode.